Subject: Maternal and child health > Safe birth and newborn care

The UN Commission on Life-Saving Commodities for Women and Children was launched in 2012 to increase access to lifesaving commodities in the world's poorest countries, and neonatal resuscitation devices were selected as one of the lifesaving commodities. The objective of PATH’s market sizing is to estimate the total market size for newborn resuscitation commodities in eight African countries. The market size estimates reflect the total number of commodities each country will need to provide resuscitation care to newborns born in facilities.

This issue of Directions in Global Health highlights PATH’s work over a decade to improve control of Japanese encephalitis and make an affordable vaccine from China widely available. It includes an editorial by Dr. Kathy Neuzil, who directs PATH’s Vaccine Access and Delivery Global Program. Other articles cover work to bring a rapid test for river blindness to market, use community-led videos to improve health, tackle diabetes and tuberculosis, and help public health managers with information systems.

This issue of PATH Today shares a breakthrough for a vaccine against Japanese encephalitis and the story of Dr. Nekoye Otsyula, a researcher on PATH's malaria vaccine trial. PATH donors Brian Arbogast and Valerie Tarico describe their approach to giving—supporting solutions that let people take care of themselves.

Drawing on the experiences of milk banks around the world, PATH developed this document as a high-level blueprint or toolkit that ministries of health, policymakers, and implementers can use to identify the critical components required for an effective human milk bank program. Our goal is that this framework serve as a powerful resource, facilitating communication with the global human milk banking community, empowering policymakers with the tools and information they need to develop and support locally appropriate human milk banks and, ultimately, ensuring that vulnerable infants around the world have access to this lifesaving intervention.

This publication highlights ten breakthrough health innovations ready to be used in developing countries to reach the Millennium Development Goals. Paired with existing tools, these low-cost innovations have the potential to save millions of lives by addressing the greatest health threats to women, newborns, and children.

Postpartum hemorrhage (PPH), or excessive bleeding after childbirth, is the single largest cause of maternal death worldwide. In this poster, created for the 2013 Saving Lives at Birth DevelopmentXChange, PATH proposed to develop heat-stable fast-dissolving oxytocin tablets for sublingual delivery, helping to more easily and effectively prevent and treat PPH in low-resource communities. The small, needle-free tablet format eliminates the risks associated with sharps use and disposal. Its heat stability also reduces the need for expensive cold chain transport and storage.

The UN Commission on Life-Saving Commodities for Women and Children (the Commission) was formed in 2012 by the UN Secretary-General as a part of the Every Woman Every Child movement. The Commission’s framework for action outlines a priority list of 13 commodities and 10 cross-cutting recommendations to rapidly increase access and use. To help carry forward the Commission’s recommendations at the global and national levels, Global Technical Reference Teams (TRT) were established. One group was formed for each of the 13 commodities and 10 recommendations, and an advocacy working group is dedicated to advancing their cross-cutting goals. The advocacy working group, convened by PATH, developed a series of briefs highlighting the major goals, challenges, and activities of each TRT.

At the 2013 Women Deliver Conference in Kuala Lumpur, Elizabeth Abu Haydar—a PATH public health specialist—presented an overview of PATH’s work activities on the non-pneumatic antishock garment in a workshop discussing local manufacturing and logistics.

This issue of Directions in Global Health highlights PATH’s work to increase access to lifesaving products for women. It features a commentary by Catharine Taylor, who directs PATH’s Maternal and Child Health and Nutrition Program. Other articles cover efforts to improve health and nutrition with orange-fleshed sweetpotatoes in Kenya, increase hepatitis B vaccination for newborns in Vietnam, fight childhood tuberculosis in Tanzania, and assess a range of technologies for their potential impact in reducing maternal deaths.

This issue of Outlook explores the promise and current realities of new information technologies in service to reproductive health programming in low-resource settings (including HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment and maternal and child health interventions). The issue examines new approaches and looks to the future for current needs and potential solutions. Find out more about PATH's work in digital health solutions and reproductive health.

This issue of PATH Today leads with the Mama SASHA project, which is improving nutrition, agriculture, and prenatal health care in Kenya. PATH's work to increase access to breast cancer screening in rural Peru is also featured, and donors Bryan and Martha Kim share why contributing to PATH is a smart investment. News briefs include an update about family planning and new work in Myanmar.

This document describes the Window of Opportunity project's efforts to improve the health and development of mothers and children in John Taolo Gaetswe District, South Africa. The Window of Opportunity project is a five-year initiative led by PATH, with support from BHP Billiton Sustainable Communities, that focuses on improving the health and development of children younger than two years in South Africa and Mozambique.

This document describes the Window of Opportunity project's efforts to improve the health and development of mothers and children in Nkangala District, South Africa. The Window of Opportunity project is a five-year initiative led by PATH, with support from BHP Billiton Sustainable Communities, that focuses on improving the health and development of children younger than two years in South Africa and Mozambique.

One woman dies every two minutes from pregnancy-related complications around the world. Access to maternal health medicines is too often a hidden part of the solution. This report offers a global agenda for action to improve the health of women worldwide by increasing the quality and accessibility of oxytocin, misoprostol, and magnesium sulfate. The infographic from the main report is available below as a separate file.

This document describes the Window of Opportunity project's efforts to enhance child health services in Sedibeng District, South Africa. The Window of Opportunity project is a five-year initiative led by PATH, with support from BHP Billiton Sustainable Communities, that focuses on improving the health and development of children younger than two years in South Africa and Mozambique.